Dead Island reborn with a remastered Xbox One and PS4 collection

Under different circumstances, we might have been playing Dead Island 2 right about now - but last summer, Deep Silver decided to punt the sequel's maker, Yager Development, and start with a new team. So what now?

Now we get a fresh opportunity to experience the two earlier core games with the upcoming Dead Island: Definitive Collection, which pulls together both Dead Island and Dead Island: Riptide for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4.

Both games come with all of the downloadable content and patches issued after their previous-gen releases, and will feature a newly-unified interface along with a bump up to 1080p resolution and a fixed 30fps frame rate. They'll also see better lighting, enhanced textures, and smoother in-game models, as well.

And that's not all. Joining the two games in the collection is Dead Island: Retro Rampage, a brand new 2D side-scroller that's said to be "a classic side-scrolling action/endless runner" experience. Hopefully it's better than the two Dead Island games that aren't making the cut for this collection: the terrible Escape Dead Island adventure game, and MOBA spinoff Dead Island: Epidemic, which was cancelled during beta testing.

Dead Island: Definitive Collection is due out on 31 May in both the UK and the States, with the disc-based set selling for £30 (S$60) and each core game selling digitally for £15 (S$29) apiece. It's not clear whether Retro Rampage will also be sold separately, although we'd be surprised if it's totally exclusive to the disc release.

No word yet on exactly when to expect the rejiggered Dead Island 2, or even who is developing it now in Yager's stead, but original Dead Island developer Techland went on to make last year's stellar Dying Light. If you're remotely interested in Dead Island, you ought to play that first.